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That hex fitting is rounded already. If you can break the connection loose with vise-grips and not do significant damage to the line, you can probably put it back together that way. Just put a light wipe of grease on the threads to help get it connected tightly. Might save replacing the brake line. The condition of the line is what's important. If the nut is buggered-up, no big deal, if it doesn't leak. (Not my preferred way to do it, but it'll work in a pinch.)
That hex fitting is rounded already. If you can break the connection loose with vise-grips and not do significant damage to the line, you can probably put it back together that way. Just put a light wipe of grease on the threads to help get it connected tightly. Might save replacing the brake line. The condition of the line is what's important. If the nut is buggered-up, no big deal, if it doesn't leak. (Not my preferred way to do it, but it'll work in a pinch.)
Thanks. I have the new line in hand and it doesn't look to hard to replace, so I'll give that a shot.
I removed the caliper yesterday, which as most of you advised, was not difficult at all. I need your expert eyes however to help me know if i have stainless steel sleeved calipers.
I started by pinching off my brake hose and loosening everything I could on the caliper while it was still mounted on the rotor. Unfortunately, I was unable to get a socket around the bolts that hold the two caliper halves together, so I did that once the caliper was off. Using my electric impact wrench, I was able to loosen one, while just holding onto the caliper. The other one wouldn't budge, though. I needed to put the caliper in my vise for that one, and it was still really tough to loosen. Leaving the bolts snug, I used compressed air to eject the pistons. That worked to an extent, as only one piston ejected (maybe the wood I used inbetween the pistons interfered??).
So here are my questions:
1. Is this a stainless steel sleeved caliper?
2. If it is NOT a SS caliper, what is the reason to switch? The bore appears not to be pitted, and is smooth to the touch (let's assume for the moment the other 3 bores are the same). Can o-rings only be used with the SS calipers?
3. If it IS a SS caliper, what is the best way to remove the remaining pistons without damaging the bores?
4. The pistons look good to me... Does anyone see anything different in the pictures below?
Last edited by ZRXGreen; Jul 29, 2018 at 10:28 AM.
I figured out how to get the remaining pistons out of the caliper halves. The piston that is closest to the bleeder screw was the only one that was sludged up. Could that be an indicator of that particular piston leaking? See the pics below. And I'm still looking forward to finding out if the bores are stainless steel or not. Thanks!
After more research, it appears that I have lip seals on my pistons, correct? I'm also leaning towards the fact that this caliper does not have SS sleeves, as the bore is not super shiny like I'm seeing in some pictures. I'm hoping someone tells me that I'm wrong...
AS for these calipers having stainless steel sleeves in them I can not see the edge of the sleeve...so I would have to say they DO NOT have stainless steel sleeves in them.
It is easy to tell if you have 'O' ring or lipped seals. There is no mistaking them.
Thanks for all your input. In the end, I've decided to just buy some new calipers locally here and get the car on the road faster. I'll keep you posted.
Hopefully you are getting them from a reputable source.
Reason being. I have taken apart MANY calipers that were sold my the auto parts stores and have found issues in them that may shock you. One have being anew housing that is not stainless steel sleeve and had O rings for seals while the other side had one sleeve in it and that side had lipped seals in it. The length of the spring behind the pistons were also at different lengths...so no consistency there.
Hopefully you are getting them from a reputable source.
Reason being. I have taken apart MANY calipers that were sold my the auto parts stores and have found issues in them that may shock you. One have being anew housing that is not stainless steel sleeve and had O rings for seals while the other side had one sleeve in it and that side had lipped seals in it. The length of the spring behind the pistons were also at different lengths...so no consistency there.
DUB
Because the cost to ship cores, etc. put forum sponsors out of the running for me, I decided to buy locally. I made my decision in part because of what forum user Greg wrote below in a thread about copper washers. After talking to the parts guy at NAPA (that I know through a friend), I went ahead with the purchase.
Use NAPA's Total Eclipse line. They are done by Cardone, stainless steel sleeved and epoxy coated.
SE7567 and SE7568 fronts at $ 87.99
SE7570 and SE7571 rears at $85.89
A good quality reman, available almost everywhere with a good solid warranty.
Sounds like a good deal and hopefully they hold up.
And I am sure you are also buying new front rubber brake hoses. Buying the upgraded type that are steel braided are better...but the rubber will work fine.
If you are messing around with the trailing arms..I would get new rear hoses as well.
Just make sure your rotor run out is correct and do not assume it is fine....especially if you are replacing the rotors with new rotors also.
Today I got into the garage at about 6:30am, changed the brake hose on the front passenger side, then started on the front driver's side. On the front driver's side, I removed the damaged brake line, and installed the new one. At that point, I found that the new one wasn't the same shape as the original one. It's close, but not the same. It's off to the point where it will not mate up with the brake hose in the right position. Frustrating!
I just ended up putting the old line back on for now and connecting it to the new brake hose, in an effort to try to keep the brake fluid from all leaking out.
Shortly after my last post, I installed the new calipers in the front. After all my research, I figured I would try gravity bleeding. Having never done it before, I did my research and thought I knew enough. Sure doesn't seem hard. Over the course of a couple weeks (I'm squeezing work on the car inbetween work, the family, etc.) I did as much as I thought I could do with the process. Never got a firm pedal. In fact, stepping on the pedal yielded no pressure at all. Thinking maybe I was doing something wrong, I started the whole process again, doing all 4 wheels. (Master Cyl never ran dry...) Still no pedal. Bought a vacuum bleeder kit. While I got it to pull fluid out of the calipers, I never got it to the point where a steady stream of fluid came out. It was always as if air was being sucked out as well. Again, the MC never ran dry or even came close. Still no pedal.
In the meantime, I noticed a drop of brake fluid leaking on my new calipers, right at the bottom front where the two caliper halves meet. Both of them. Exactly the same as pictured in this thread on the old driver's side caliper! Needless to say, I was pretty ticked off. After checking the hoses for any leaking and finding none, I started thinking, are these new, rebuilt calipers bad? Could it have anything to do with all the bleeding methods I tried? Could the vacuum method have sucked some fluid past the seals and "unseated" them?
I really wanted to get the car on the road, as each week slipped by with it up on jack stands and me not driving it. I decided to bleed the brakes the way I was originally taught, with someone in the car operating the pedal. (Also, I figured that afterwards, I'd get some driving in and check the brakes again for any leaking before I decided what to do.)
Saturday morning my son and I bled the brakes that way and it worked like a charm. Solid pedal. The problem was though that it was raining, so I couldn't even roll the car out of the garage. Later in the day, the rain stopped and the 90 degree heat dried all moisture off the roads. We drove the car around for a couple hours and the brakes were great. Figured I'd get the car up on ramps the next day or so to check the brakes for leaking, but then both yesterday and today it rained like heck, preventing me from getting it up on ramps.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed that by some stroke of luck the dripping will stop. The last thing I want to do is to have to replace the calipers again...
Sadly, if you saw leaks,they magically do not fix themselves, but, honestly they are very easy to rebuild, and less than $10 per caliper for parts, wish you the best!
I decided to bleed the brakes the way I was originally taught, with someone in the car operating the pedal. (Also, I figured that afterwards, I'd get some driving in and check the brakes again for any leaking before I decided what to do.)
Saturday morning my son and I bled the brakes that way and it worked like a charm. Solid pedal.
I have said this before MANY times on the forum that if you need some special brake bleeding technique other than good old standard gravity brake bleeding, there is SOMETHING WRONG in the brake system that needs to be corrected!
I just changed my brake fluid with a standard bleed at each wheel this past summer and it took about 5-6 pumps of my wife pressing on the brake pedal for EACH wheel to get the air out of the system and get clear fluid...nothing special and a firm/hard pedal.
As for the brake calipers, I would not and have never purchased any rebuilt C3 parts from any mass market retailer like Napa, autozone, advanced Auto etc since i am highly suspicious of the quality of their parts sometimes. I would buy the SS rebuilt calipers from a corvette vendor OR buy them NEW from corvette vendor (although i suspect that new calipers MAY be Chinese know offs).
